Monday, June 29, 2009

Moderates and Party ID

I was reading the local paper in an airport somewhere in the Midwest on Friday- either Omaha or Chicago- and saw a letter to the editor referencing the recent Pew finding that a plurality of Americans are conservatives and wondering why the Democrats are still in charge.

I can answer that question pretty easily: Republicans have ceded the middle to the Democrats. We've broken down party identification by ideology identification nationally and in six different states over the last two months. Here are the numbers:

Party ID of Moderates

Democrat

Republican

Independent

National

49

20

31

Alabama

44

26

30

Illinois

47

22

31

North Carolina

53

23

24

Ohio

55

23

23

West Virginia

60

25

14

Wisconsin

45

18

37


So there are more than twice as many Democrats as Republicans among moderates in all of these geographies with the exception of Alabama.

Taking it a step further, Democrats are doing nearly as well among conservatives as Republicans are among moderates:

State

% of moderates who are Republicans

% of conservatives who are Democrats

National

20

19

Alabama

26

20

Illinois

22

21

North Carolina

23

24

Ohio

23

19

West Virginia

25

29

Wisconsin

18

13


On average only 2% more of moderates are identifying with the Republican Party than conservatives are identifying with the Democratic party.

In other words Democrats are doing nearly as well with right leaning voters as Republicans are with centrists. As long as that's the case, the GOP will continue to be out of power.

No comments:

 
Web Statistics